Mara's Christmas
by Eryniell
Summary: I know this is a little bit late, but this is a story about Mara Jade on one of her first Christmases. (By the way, she's an adult in this)


This is just a little Christmas story. Mara and Luke have been married for about three years, but this is in a little bit different time. Jacen and Jaina are seven, Anakin's five and a half.

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Mara Jade walked briskly toward her apartment, her thick jacket wrapped tight around her. The blustery wind carried a light snow over the city walkways of Coruscant. She had just finished going Christmas shopping to get presents for Luke and her two-year-old daughter, Auri. 

Even though she participated in the large celebrations around Christmas-time, she still didn't see what the big deal was about Christmas. Near the end of every standard year, all the shops would suddenly come alive, with neon signs displaying the store names for all to see. Fancy displays were set up in windows, with new toys surrounded by fake snow and winter scenes. Mara had rarely celebrated Christmas, and was just coming to know all the traditions. If she had ever celebrated it when she was a child, it was a memory that she had forgotten long ago.

As she neared the apartment, she rubbed her cold hands together as she set down the bag and took out her keys. When she opened the door, she was hoping she would find Luke down in the family room of the two-story apartment, so that she could sneak up to their bedroom and hide the presents in her closet. Instead, she found Luke standing on a stool with his back to her in front of a huge evergreen tree, a string of lights in his hands. Auri was bouncing around the living room with excitement, peering into the numerous cardboard boxes with ornaments in them surrounding the tree.

"What…" Mara began, obviously surprised, "Where… where'd you get the tree?"

Upon hearing his wife's voice, Luke turned around. He smiled, but looked slightly disappointed. "I thought you would be out longer. I wanted to surprise you."

"You certainly surprised me," Mara answered.

"In a good or bad way?" Luke asked, unsure of her reaction to his surprise.

"Definitely in a good way. It's a nice tree. So, where did you get it? And where'd you get the lights and the ornaments?" she asked again.

Luke, looking relieved, started in on his explanation, "Well, Auri and I were bored, and so I thought that we could go get a tree to surprise you when you got back. After all, it is almost the middle of December already. As for the lights and ornaments, they're just stuff I've collected over the years every Christmas. I was hoping to finish it before you got back. I did get the lights done, though," he finished as he strung the last loop of lights around the tree.

"Well, I'm glad you didn't finish. Now I can help you put the ornaments up." Mara looked over to where Auri was standing on her tiptoes to peek into one of the full cardboard boxes. "Auri, come here, baby." 

"Mommy! Mommy!" Auri shrieked, as she ran into her mother's arms. Mara scooped her up and held Auri as she listened to her daughter. "Mommy, look! Tree." The girl pointed to the evergreen in the corner of the living room.

"Yes, that's a very nice tree. Did you help Daddy when he went to get the tree?"

Auri nodded and smiled. Then she squirmed out of Mara's arms to be let down, and grabbed her mother's hand. "Come on, Mommy. See tree. Go see tree."

Mara obediently walked over to the tree with her daughter leading the way, and exclaimed at the nice tree and the good job Auri had done picking it out.

As Mara was busy listening to her daughter, Luke spoke up again, "Uh, Mara?" asked as he got down from the chair. He bent over to plug the lights into the outlet and the tree light up with color.

"Yes?"

"Leia invited us to a Christmas party that she's having. She called wanting to know if we could come."

"Well… hang on. Let me go put this stuff away first." Mara picked up her bags to go put them away.

"Hey, let me see," Luke said, smiling as he tried to peek into the bag.

Mara quickly pulled it out of his reach. "No! You don't get any presents until Christmas. And that's only if you've been a good little boy all year long," Mara joked, "Besides, I had the woman at the store pre-wrap them because I knew you'd try to see what you're getting." She started walking down the hallway and turned to face him. "Now go make dinner while I put this stuff away," she commented.

Luke snapped to attention and saluted. "Yes, ma'am!" He then marched swiftly into the kitchen and Mara continued her way down the hallway, leaving Auri to watch a Christmas holovid in the living room.

As Mara carefully put the presents away in the back of her closet, she thought about the invitation to Leia's party. She soon decided that they would go, for Auri's sake, but Mara wasn't sure how much fun _she_ would actually have. She would probably just end up standing in a corner, feeling awkward.

As she walked back into the living room, she found the holovid still blaring sounds, but didn't find Auri. She continued her way into the kitchen and found Luke standing at the stove and Auri sitting at the table, surrounded and covered in a gluey mess.

"Hi, Mommy," Auri said, without looking up.

"I'm not going to ask," Mara said to herself. _Well, maybe I will._ She walked over to where Luke was punching in numbers on the control panel of the stove. As she came up behind him, she hugged him and whispered in his ear, "What have you done to our daughter? She looks like she's covered in something out of a horror vid."

"I just thought this would be a good chance for her to use her, uh… creativity skills," he started.

"So you let her make a huge mess out of the kitchen table?" she cut in.

"Hang on, I'm not done explaining yet. So I let her make Christmas ornaments, and don't worry, I'll clean it up."

"Good." Mara went over to the table and helped her daughter spread glitter over a pre-cut cardboard star shape.

They continued making assorted ornaments for the next ten minutes until Luke came up and tugged playfully on Mara's braid.

"Hey, Miss Glue Queen," he said to Mara, whose hands were covered in glue and glitter, "should we clean this up now and eat later, or should we just leave the mess here and eat in the living room?"

"Living room," Mara answered as she picked up Auri to go put some less gluey clothes on her.

Five minutes later, the Skywalkers sat down on the couch with their plates on the coffee table in front of them. With Auri sitting on her lap, Mara reached over to get the holo remote and flipped through the channels until she found an interesting show that _wasn't_ a holiday theme. (This was pretty hard because just about every channel had holiday shows on them.) Then they settled down and started to eat their dinner. Before Mara started eating, she turned to Luke and said quietly,

"Let's go ahead and go to Leia's party. I'll call her back after dinner."

Luke, whose mouth was already full of food, could only nod his response.

* * * * *

"Han, just go do it!" Leia answered in response to her husband's protests.

"Fine, fine," Han grumbled and walked away in search of a loader to put their Christmas stuff on. The party was going to be set up in one of the ballrooms in the Senate building, as there was not nearly enough room in Han and Leia's house. Han, though, had not known this and had set all the stuff right down in their living room.

Leia then began rushing around the house making preparations because there was only an hour and a half left until the party. She felt as nervous as a Kowakian monkey lizard about to meet its doom. In an hour and a half, about 100 people, both her friends and important figures in the New Republic, would be coming to her party.

As she was hurriedly putting in a call to the caterer to see if they were on schedule, Anakin ran shrieking into the room. He was followed by Jacen and Jaina in wampa masks, roaring at the tops of their lungs.

"Kids, cut it out. I'm on the phone," Leia snapped, putting the call on hold for a moment. Anakin ran into the large hallway closet and locked the door, while Jacen and Jaina gave up and slumped down against the wall. Leia turned around and finished her call, "…yes… what, you're going to be LATE?!? It starts in an hour and a half, you can't be late… yes, yes, I understand. Just try to be relatively on time." As she finished the call, she blew out a huge sigh and put her hands over her eyes, exhausted.

A couple of minutes later, Han came back inside, towing behind him a large repulsor loader. When he glanced at his two children adorned in wampa masks and scary-looking gloves, he muttered, "Well, they've certainly got the _snow_ part of Christmas down." He then proceeded to reach for the top box on the large stack of boxes in the living room, and placed it on the loader. With only a glance at his wife – who was still running around the house making last minute preparations and had not even gotten herself ready yet – he quickly loaded all the other crates on and walked out of the room to set up for the party.

* * * * *

"Mom," Jaina whined, "why do I have to wear this stupid dress?"

"Jaina, hush. It's only for a couple of hours. I promise that if you really can't stand wearing the dress, daddy will take you home and let you get some pants on. But for now, just _try_ to act happy. Please?"

"Okay," she answered, and folded her arms and frowned, pouting.

Leia rolled her eyes and walked over to the door to greet people. 

When Leia was out of hearing range, Han knelt down and whispered to his kids, "Guys, I promise that if you be good and don't make your mother mad, I'll buy you any candy you want after this party, okay? I'm not too crazy about wearing these fancy clothes, either." He looked down at his neatly ironed black tuxedo suit and scowled. When he glanced back at his kids, they looked at him like he was a god.

"Thank you, Daddy. Thank you," they all cried.

"Okay, okay, shhhh… you don't want Mommy to hear you, do you?"

That made them seal their lips and all three promptly smiled politely at the arriving guests. 

A couple of minutes later, Luke arrived, with Mara just behind him holding Auri.

"Uncle Luke!!!!" the Solo kids cried, and ran towards their aunt and uncle. Anakin jumped up and threw himself into Luke's arms, while Jacen and Jaina both hugged Luke and Mara.

Auri squirmed around in Mara's arms. "Down, Mommy." Mara set her down and held her hand as they walked over to Han, who was leaning against the wall with his hands jammed into his pockets, looking the other way.

"Why, hello, General Solo! How wonderful it is to see you here," Mara spoke up in an imitation of an extremely proper delegate.

Han laughed. "Oh, hi, Mara. Hi, Luke."

"Han, me… me!" Auri said, pulling on Han's pants' leg.

"Hiya, Auri," he answered, lifting her up, "How's my little princess?" She snuggled into his arms, wrinkling his shirt. Han didn't care. 

After a few minutes, all the kids had run off, and Luke had gone with Auri to go talk to Leia. Mara stood next to Han, observing all the guests dance and talk with each other happily. She smoothed her red velvet dress and looked over at Han.

"So, do you feel as awkward her as I do?" she asked.

"Yup, but I don't think it's for the same reason. I'm just mad because Leia made me wear these clothes and she didn't let me invite any of my old buddies. Lando's probably off charming three women at once," he said, gesturing to the vast room filled with people, "and Chewie went home to visit his family for awhile. So I just get to stand here and act proper and tell my kids not to wreak too much havoc tonight. Lucky for me, tomorrow night I'm getting together with all my friends and we're having a _real_ Christmas party. But I think loneliness and boredom's probably not the reason you're feeling awkward, right?"

"Not really. See, I've almost never celebrated Christmas in my life. These past three years with Luke have been the only Christmas celebrations I've ever had, and I'm still not quite used to it yet. It's just not as interesting to me as it is to other people. Sure, I get some free presents and get to go to parties, but it's just not as exciting as going off and saving the galaxy or something. 

"Besides, the Emperor was never very big on that whole 'jolly, good-natured celebration of what we're thankful for' kind of thing. If he had ever given me a Christmas present, which he didn't, all I probably would've gotten would be a probe for lightsaber training or something." She laughed lightly.

"Well, just put all that behind you and enjoy what you have here. You've got Luke, you've got Auri, and you've got all of us, your friends. Enjoy it while you still have the chance."

"I guess you're right. So maybe you should enjoy it, too. Come on, let's go find something interesting to do," Mara said, and walked off in search of Jaina.

"Hi, Aunt Mara!" Jaina called, and waved her arms over her head, "Over here!" 

Mara quickly spotted her and walked over. Jaina stood in front of the huge tree that Leia had gotten, looking at the mountain of presents underneath it.

"I'm trying to see if any of these are for me," she said, and knelt down to look behind the tree.

"Hey, Jaina," Mara said.

"What?" Jaina responded and stood back up.

"I don't know if any of _those_ are for you, but I know that _this_ is for you and your family." Mara pulled something blue and glittery out of her small, black purse and handed it to Jaina. "It's an ornament for your Christmas tree. Auri made it. Well, I helped her, but she tried to make it. She just ended up spilling glue all over our kitchen table."

Jaina laughed and took the star-shaped ornament from Mara, smiling. "I want to put it up there," she pointed to the spot she was talking about, "for now, because I don't want anybody messing it up."

Mara grabbed Jaina and lifted her up to place the ornament about two-thirds of the way up the tree. As she set her niece down, she said, "Now, come on. This is a good song that's playing. Do you want to go dance?"

"Sure!" Jaina answered and raced Mara down to the dance floor in search of the rest of her family.

Soon, the entire Skywalker and Solo family was gathered around the dance floor. Jacen and Jaina were swinging each other around in circles, shrieking and laughing. Auri was running around them, trying to dance with them, and Anakin was off to the side, whispering to Han. After Anakin was done talking, Han walked off towards the door.

Mara looked over at Luke as he came up with a small plate of food. "Having fun?" he asked.

"Yeah," Mara answered, and grabbed a cookie from Luke's plate.

"Hey!" he cried.

"Oh, deal with it, Skywalker. Get another cookie if you want one. But first…" Mara pulled him out onto the dance floor just as a slow song began.

For a few minutes, they danced in long-awaited silence, enjoying their time together. Then, at the end of the song, the DJ turned his microphone on and said, 

"For all you kids out there, we have a surprise. Guess who's here?"

At that, Han walked into the room, dressed as an elf. He had forced himself to smile, but sent Luke and Mara a look that said, 'Why me?' and they both burst out laughing.

A few minutes later, Talon Karrde walked in, looking only slightly uncomfortable. He had on a padded Santa suit and had dyed his beard white.

"Santa!" most of the kids cried out when they saw him. They all ran over to him and Mara laughed even harder. As he tried to move through the sea of children, they all cried out what they wanted for Christmas. The DJ thought that this might be a good time to organize this whole operation more and said into his microphone,

"Kids, line up at Santa's chair single file and you can all tell him what you want for Christmas." The kids immediately complied and swarmed over towards the chair Karrde was heading towards.

Leia walked over to Luke and Mara, and in between laughs, Mara managed to say, "You actually got him to do that for you?"

"Well, actually, I threatened to have the New Republic come and take away his licenses for all his ships if he didn't do it. So, no, he didn't willingly volunteer to play Santa. Neither did Han, I had to promise him that I would buy him any spare parts for the _Millennium Falcon_ for the next two years with my own money. That's the only way I got him to be an elf."

"Oh, Leia. You've just committed yourself to a life of bankruptcy for the next two years. When does the _Falcon **not**_ need repairing? Come on, let's go see Santa," Luke said. "I've been a good boy all year long." He set down his plate and went over to talk to Han, who was standing miserably beside Karrde's chair.

* * * * * 

After all the kids had talked to Santa at least twice, Karrde finally got to leave. As he and Han walked towards the door to get their costumes off, Jacen, Jaina, and Anakin ran up to Han.

"Hi, Santa," they all said to Talon Karrde. 

Then Jaina asked the question that had been on all three Solo children's minds for the past half an hour, "Daddy, I didn't know you worked for Santa."

"Well, you know what? I went to a store one day, and they had a sign that said that people could be workers for Santa for Christmas. So I signed up and now I'm helping Santa for this Christmas."

"Cool!" Anakin cried, "I want to be Santa's elf when I grow up!"

"No, I want to!" Jacen argued.

"No, me!" Jaina interrupted.

They all ran off, still arguing, and Han and Talon quickly ran out the door before any more kids could bombard them with questions.

* * * * *

"Hi, Aunt Mara!" Anakin said as he walked up to her fifteen minutes later. "What did you tell Santa you wanted for Christmas?" 

"Oh, I didn't ask him for anything," she said, picking him up.

"Why not? Don't you want presents? It's fun, Aunt Mara," he cried, astonished that someone could _not_ want anything for Christmas.

"It is, huh?" she asked. Anakin nodded solemnly, brow still furrowed in confusion. "Well, I'll go find Santa later and tell him what I want, okay?"

Anakin relaxed and smiled. "Okay. Hey, they're going to open presents! Come on, Aunt Mara!" 

Mara set Anakin down and he grabbed her hand, then they both ran over to the tree.

As they headed over, Anakin spoke up again, "You know, Aunt Mara, you shouldn't not like Christmas just because you've never done it before. I didn't like Daddy's Corellian nut cookies (Note: don't ask me where I thought of _those_ -Lara) when I first tried them, but then I tried them again and I liked them. You should do that with Christmas. Just because you didn't know what it was like when you were a kid, doesn't mean you should _never_ know what it's like. Try Christmas once, you might like it more than you think."

_Such a wise little kid,_ Mara thought, _He sounds exactly like Luke during one of his speeches at the Academy…_

"Okay, Anakin. I'll try Christmas. Maybe it'll be yummy like those cookies, hmm?"

"Yeah. Come on! They're going to open the presents now!" he said.

"Okay, let's go." Mara and Anakin ran over to the huge tree and Anakin joined his siblings on the floor, while Mara sat with Luke on one of the benches against the wall.

Soon, Leia came up and made a speech saying thank you to everyone for coming and started passing out the presents.

Everyone got their presents and opened them, showing them off to their friends and chatting happily.

Mara noticed that Anakin had run off somewhere and walked over to Jacen and Jaina to chat with them.

The rest of the night was wonderful, in Mara's opinion. Anakin's advice worked, and she had a great rest of the night.

Just as Luke and Mara were putting on their coats to go home, Anakin ran up with his hand behind his back.

"Aunt Mara! Wait!" Mara turned toward the little boy as he ran up. "I have a Christmas present for you."

Mara knelt down as the boy produced a piece of paper from behind his back.

"I made it for you," he said proudly. On the paper, there was a picture of a tree and a boy with dark hair in a suit (probably Anakin) and a woman with red hair and a red dress on, which Mara decided was most likely her. In the background was the whole Skywalker and Solo family, as well as several friends. At the top of the page, in big five-year-old handwriting, were the words

CRISMIS IS YUMMY!

Mara hugged Anakin and thanked him for the wonderful picture. "You know what, Anakin?"

"What?"

Mara reached up to one of the tables and pulled down two cookies. She handed one to him and kept the other for herself. "You were right. Christmas _is_ yummy."

They both laughed and Anakin waved goodbye to Luke, who was holding his fast-asleep daughter, and then Anakin gave Mara one last hug and waved to her, too.

"Goodbye, Anakin!" Mara called. "Merry Christmas!"

THE END


End file.
